Enda Kenny meets people on a final canvas at Donaghmede shopping centre in Dublin. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Poised for power and in line for what is arguably the most difficult task in the European Union, Enda Kenny sought out fellow sons and daughters of Mayo on his final election tour around Dublin this week.

With all the polls indicating that the Fine Gael leader will become taoiseach this weekend, Co Mayo's most famous son seemed most at ease among voters he encountered in the Irish capital who had originally come from the same part of western Ireland.

Under the crystal chandeliers of the Hibernian College in Clare Street, Kenny pressed the flesh with staff from near where he was born and grew up.

One of those getting the warmest of handshakes was Sean Roland, the president of the Hibernian College who like Kenny comes from near Castlebar.

"I have known Enda and his family for most of my life," said Roland as a parade of foreign television news crews from Spain, Finland and Germany followed the taoiseach-in-waiting around the building, their presence a sure sign that all of the eurozone is watching intently for the outcome of the most important election in Ireland for decades.

"My father would have known his father, we went to the same school, we followed the same gaelic football teams. Everybody is really proud that a Castlebar man is on the brink of becoming taoiseach, it is a great moment for the town and for Mayo."

Kenny has never been known for performing well on TV and during this three-week election campaign he refused to take part in the first live televised debate with his two main rivals. Yet on the street he sheds his televisual image as a somewhat wooden, monotone technocrat.

Roland said there was a personable side of Kenny behind a veneer of public shyness. "He is actually a great storyteller and can be very witty at times. Enda relaxes by playing golf, running and even climbing mountains."

In political terms Kenny has reached the summit of his career having climbed out of several crevices in recent years – the most recent being an attempted coup against his leadership within Fine Gael only last year.

A group comprised mainly of Dublin Fine Gaelers and frontbenchers tried to oust him because they believed his inability to transmit their message to the media was an electoral liability. To resist the putsch Kenny turned to supporters in his rural base, particularly his home stronghold of Mayo, which is where he will return to vote on Friday and watch the countdown to his becoming prime minister.

Outside the college he managed to stop the Dublin traffic when a van driver pulled up at traffic lights and stuck his hand out of the door for Kenny to shake. It was the start of a final punishing tour of the Republic that has covered 2,485 miles (4,000km) of road from Kerry in the south to Donegal in the north-west.

One of Kenny's predecessors, the ex-Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald, has called for Fine Gael to govern with Labour. It was the only prospect of a stable government lasting five years and having the potential to turn around Ireland's parlous public finances, Fitzgerald argued.

When pressed if his former leader's intervention was useful, Kenny replied: "He is entitled to his opinion."

Fine Gael right up to polling day has been trying to maximise its vote, even appealing to disgruntled Fianna Fáil voters to "lend us your vote" in the election. Kenny declined at his final press conference to advise voters where they should place their second, third and fourth preferences once they give their number one vote to Fine Gael candidates.

The task in government, whatever shape or form it is, will be enormously daunting for Kenny and his team. The International Monetary Fund and the Europeans who lent Ireland billions of euro to rescue the country's debt-ridden banks and keep Ireland solvent are insisting it reduce its national debt to 3% of GDP by 2014. That means continuing a painful round of austerity measures including higher taxes, cuts to social welfare and job reductions in the public sector.

As he prepared for his final tour of the country, travelling north again to the border counties with Northern Ireland, Kenny said he was taking nothing for granted. "I have been round this course before," he said as the sirens started wailing in the city near Dublin's Grand Canal.

"This is a very anxious period for everyone standing in the election but the Irish people are suffering at the minute and they are looking for a way out."

Derided for years in the Irish media, the man from Mayo is now taking over the task of leading his people out of the cul-de-sac of recession and near bankruptcy. The mountain climber from Castlebar is almost at the peak of his domestic political career but when he gets there he will find there are even more challenging European and global ranges to ascend, the first of which is to persuade his fellow EU premiers that Ireland can renegotiate the international financial rescue package.

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